Quotes from Friedrich Nietzsche

On account of those absolute and impatient ones, be not jealous, thou lover of truth! Never yet did truth cling to the arm of an absolute one.

To be sure, the belief that these ideas, the accompanying occurrences in the consciousness, were causes is also brought up by the memory. Thus there arises an habituation to a certain causal interpretation which in truth obstructs and even prohibits an investigation of the cause.

art it is easier to go over to a really emancipating philosophical science.

Nihilism. It is ambiguous: A. Nihilism as a sign of increased power of the spirit: as active nihilism. B. Nihilism as decline and recession of the power of the spirit: as passive nihilism.

The submission to Christianity on the part of master races is essentially the result of the conviction that Christianity is a religion for the herd, that it teaches obedience: in short, that Christians are more easily ruled than non-Christians. With a hint of this nature, the Pope, even nowadays, recommends Christian propaganda to the ruling Sovereign of China.

Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.

If ye believed more in life, then would ye devote yourselves less to the momentary. But for waiting, ye have not enough of capacity in you—nor even for idling! Everywhere

At the moment when anyone begins to take philosophy seriously, all the world believes the opposite." —Human, All Too Human, "Assorted Opinions and Maxims

Extreme positions are not succeeded by moderate ones, but by contrary extreme positions.

You can see that I have become so candid that I can endure only human relationships which are absolutely genuine. I avoid half-friendships.

The new, the unexperienced, the strange is excluded from being cause. – Thus there is sought not only some kind of explanation as cause, but a selected and preferred kind of explanation, the kind by means of which the feeling of the strange, new, unexperienced is most speedily and most frequently abolished – the most common explanations. –

We see that science also rests on faith; there is simply no science without presuppositions

Those who inflate themselves are cursed When pricked by a small pin to burst.

Since humanity came into being, man hath enjoyed himself too little: that alone, my brethren, is our original sin! And when we learn better to enjoy ourselves, then do we unlearn best to give pain unto others, and to contrive pain. Therefore do I wash the hand that hath helped the sufferer; therefore do I wipe also my soul. For in seeing the sufferer suffering – thereof was I ashamed on account of his shame; and in helping him, sorely did I wound his pride.

Our age, as much as it speaks of economics, is in fact a squanderer: it squanders the most precious thing there is, the spirit.

Even if it should happen to be a rhyme not suited for every one's ears. I unlearned long ago to have consideration for long ears.

You creating ones, you higher men! Whoever has to give birth is sick; whoever has given birth, however, is unclean. Ask women: one gives birth, not because it gives pleasure. The pain makes hens and poets cackle. You creating ones, in you there is much uncleanliness. That is because you have had to be mothers. A new child: oh, how much new filth has also come into the world! Go apart! He who has given birth shall wash his soul!

In my dream, in my last morning-dream, I stood today on a promontory— beyond the world; I held a pair of scales, and weighed the world. Alas, that the rosy dawn came too early to me: she glowed me awake, the jealous one! Jealous is she always of the glows of my morning-dream.

It was likewise never doubted that all the antecedentia of an action, its causes, were to be sought in the consciousness and could be discovered there if one sought them – as 'motives': for otherwise one would not have been free to perform it, responsible for it.

You are treading your path of greatness: now it must call up all your courage that there is no longer a path behind you! You are treading your path of greatness: no one shall steal after you here! Your foot itself has extinguished the path behind you, and above that path stands written: Impossibility.

It is true: we love life, not because we are used to living, but because we are used to loving. There is always some madness in love. But there is always also some reason in madness.

He who destroys the illusions in himself and others is punished by nature, the cruelest tyrant.

Hold the capacity of feeling to be the most important and elemental, as providing the foundation for every sound and real growth; everything that is truly great and human.

They arise from faith, hope and charity – the Christian virtues. – In reality all these supposed explanations are consequential states and as it were translations of pleasurable and unpleasurable feelings into a false dialect: one is in a state in which one can experience hope because the physiological basic feeling is once more strong and ample; one trusts in God because the feeling